Tue, 03 Mar 2015 14:34:54 -0800WeeblyTue, 03 Mar 2015 03:50:32 GMThttp://www.frilloblog.com/blog/from-the-pastors-laptop-asian-wisdomMany thanks to Melissa Lopes for commissioning this portrait of St. Philip Neri, which now hangs in our common room

We are fortunate to have many wise Asian women in our parish. They remind us of what we already know, and recover what we seem to have lost. There are days, and there will be days, when I can’t see how “it” will work. My own frailties, and the overwhelming firepower of the world, knock the wind out of me. I related this state of affairs to a wise and dear Vietnamese friend the other day. You must understand how much the last few generations in Vietnam have suffered, which has endowed their faith with a rare purity and beauty. “Father,” she said, “God is with you. He is with all of us. You have to believe this.” I have to believe that everything God allows will bring about something beautiful. Every single catastrophe is a grace-filled moment of sanctification. “God cannot love you unless he humbles you,” she said. “Only humility can feel God’s touch.”

And so I thought about the humility that comes only through fasting, the kind that strips one to the bone. If I summon the courage, I fast on Friday until after nighttime Stations. And it is when I am empty, hardly strong enough to stand, that I feel God’s touch. To know Him who was stripped, I need to be stripped. Praying the Stations after a satisfying meal is a waste of time. And the most perfect fasting is to take what God gives, and give what he takes, with a big smile. Why the smile? Because I know that in giving what I would never have given, I am finally letting him love me, feeling his love. So, dear children, do not fear the cross. Love the cross, and learn to know God through surrender to it.

Lent: dust to dustForty Days: Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, and we spend 40 days in Lent. We began this holy season of cleansing, sacrifice, and joy five days ago by getting our ashes. On Ash Wednesdays in New York City, where I attended seminary, we would spend all day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, marking ashes on people’s foreheads. Everyone came: the cabbies and the power brokers, office workers in smart business suits and tennis shoes, news anchors and opera stars from Times Square, street cleaners and Wall Street financiers, homeless folk and the Park Avenue elite. All stood shoulder to shoulder in line, patiently waiting to get a smudge of ashes under the great gothic arches of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. All alike confess the universal truth: I am not perfect, I will die someday, and I need God’s help. Now is the time to turn back to God. I gave a dollar to a homeless man yesterday at a red light on Park Presidio. Homeless people often see life with wonderfully simple clarity. He asked me if I was a reverend. I said, yes, sort of, that I was a Catholic priest. “I’m a Baptist,” he called out, “and I believe in God, because he is my savior.” I looked into his dancing blue eyes as the light turned green. “But don’t get me wrong,” he chuckled as I pulled away. “I backslide from time to time!” There is no one in this church that does not backslide, and God is here to push us back up the slide.TemptationsIn today’s Gospel, our blessed Savior enters the wilderness of our sin and its consequences, a zone of death, to fight for us. It is a wilderness full of beasts and angels, the best and the worst of our human race. Jesus goes into the desert to rescue the beasts and transform them into angels. He is tempted by Satan, as we are tempted, in three ways: First, by pleasure. You are hungry, Satan points out, for this or that satisfaction. You can have that satisfaction just by asking for it; your Father in heaven would not deny you this simple pleasure. With Jesus, we reply: God’s word, and God’s will, is my bread, and my only pleasure. I will discipline my body so my soul can be filled. Keep your Lenten fast—the spiritual riches you will receive are worth the price. The Second Temptation is to having it my way. Throw yourself down—you have a right to do what you want, and someone will catch you. I saw a skateboarder the other day flying down the hill on Geary right through traffic—no brakes, completely unprotected—almost like a death wish. It was a sheer assertion of his will to do what he wants with his life. And we say in reply: my life is not my own, but I am a steward of the gift God has given me. Give alms, for in giving your life to God and others rather than throwing it away on your own will, you entrust it to God, who will keep it safe for you. And finally the third temptation, to power. By bending a knee to Satan, Jesus could have unlimited worldly power. By bending a knee to this culture, we could gain mastery over a dimension of it. But God calls us not to conform, but to reform, to go against the tide rather than assimilate to this world. The world, anyway, is passing away. SO in Lent we pray more and more deeply. We pray to God, not to Satan, and we dedicate ourselves to disciplined prayer.Parish MissionOur Parish Mission next week will focus on Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant, and Jesus, the divine presence in that Ark. He is always within her. The closer we draw to Mary, the closer we draw to Jesus inside of her. There is no authentic devotion or life in Christ that ignores or disowns his Mother Mary.Msgr. Arthur Calkins, a Vatican expert on Our Blessed Mother, will preach Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights at 7pm. We will expose the Blessed Sacrament after his talk, and conclude with benediction. A priest will be in the confessional during adoration. There is wonderful grace in simply coming to a mission, because it is God’s will that we do this during Lent. I hope you can come. Let us pray to Our Lady now in the words of Mother Teresa:

Mary, Mother of Jesus, give me your heart, so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate, so full of love and humility,that I may be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life, love Him as you loved Him, and serve Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.

Yesterday we all received a black mark on our foreheads. When I was a kid (only one of two Catholics in my class), I wore that sign of the cross traced in black ashes with pride—too much pride, I’m sure. In the early years of our Church’s history, the sign of the cross was misunderstood, even a sign of shame. Sometimes today, too, the Sign of the Cross is misunderstood by some.

Imagine a Catholic who attends a morning Ash Wednesday Mass, then dashes off to work at a high-powered office in the financial district or a chic clothing store on Union Square. This sign of our faith will be misunderstood by some, and even as we witness to our belief in Jesus we must do so with patient charity, as some will not want to see our faith publicly displayed. Let us wear that sign nevertheless and hope that many will come to a better understanding of our faith.In years past the newspapers would always send a reporter and cameraman to my parish for a story on Ash Wednesday and the Christian practice of Lent. After all, the majority of people in this country practice the Christian faith, so Lent is certainly a newsworthy item. But in recent years, Ash Wednesday has become less of a story. I kind of miss those nice reporters and the festive atmosphere they brought with their colorful stories about Lenten practices. Imagine my delight when CBS, NBC, ABC, the Chronicle, and even the Examiner showed up last Wednesday. They expected to do a somewhat negative story on our parish, but every child, every adult they interviewed proclaimed the faith by the Sign of the Cross in ashes on their forehead! I had a lovely time talking to reporters again, and we all got our news story on Lent. God knows what He is doing!

Our Catholic schools are one of the most treasured gifts from God. We must remember that they are God's, not ours. We are stewards, not owners. May God help me, in my current assignment as pastor of Star of the Sea parish and school, to be a good steward of his gifts. On Wednesday I met with a group of concerned school parents. Their concerns are generally the same as those addressed to Archbishop Cordileone last week regarding his own Archdiocesan high schools. "What is your vision for our school?" the parents asked me. "Will you continue to be inclusive?" My response is yes, we will continue to welcome all who want a Catholic education. What is a "Catholic education?" My response to that question is simply to quote Archbishop Cordileone's statement last week regarding the high schools: "Catholic schools exist to affirm and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ as held and taught by his Catholic Church." All the other goods of a Catholic education--math and science scores, sports programs, social values, parent community, a safe environment--all flow from that essential purpose. To the degree that we back away from proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ as held and taught by his Catholic Church, all the other excellent qualities of a Catholic education decline. The public schools have largely distanced themselves from Judeo-Christian principles and have become troubled institutions as a result. Many want the "safe environment" and higher academic standards of Catholic schools without the Gospel, but these are inseparable. That is why my mandate from the Archbishop is to keep our school in line with its mission, which could not be better articulated than by our Archbishop in the statement above.

Ora et Labora“Prayer and work” are the rhythm of the Christian life. Mother Teresa expressed this beautifully on the little “business cards” she would give out: “Prayer is the fruit of silence; faith is the fruit of prayer; love is the fruit of faith; service is the fruit of love.” It’s a kind of chain reaction—silence leads to prayer, which leads to faith, then to love, and finally to serving others. Authentic prayer will inevitably lead to service. A Christian who prays but does not serve is kind of a dud, a “failure to launch.”

In today’s gospel, Jesus is weary of the crowds and just wants to get away by himself. The previous day the “whole town” had been gathered at his door for a free cure, and he must’ve been exhausted. We’ve all had days when everyone needs something from us. So the next day Jesus gets up very early and goes alone to a deserted place to pray. But before long Peter and the others find him and order him back to work: “everyone is looking for you!” Jesus simply says, “let us go…for this purpose I have come.” God came to earth to serve, and during our time on earth we must serve with him. There’s certainly plenty of work to be done.Only a ShadowThe Catholic Church in San Francisco is but a shadow of what she once was, and I suppose that is true in most of our big cities. I realized this most forcefully last week with the storm of protest against our altar boy policy, but it became much more apparent when I saw Archbishop Cordileone attacked for requiring Catholic school teachers to teach Catholic doctrine. These protests are generated by the secular media, of course, but what surprised me was how quickly and cruelly our own parishioners joined in. For CBS to belittle Catholic belief and practice is understandable; for a Catholic to do so is dysfunctional and disobedient. If Catholics side with the media against their own archbishop, then we must say that the Church in our city has somehow failed. In 1939 France and Germany were still “accommodating” the National Socialists in Germany even as the Reich’s armies overran Poland; our Church has also been complicit to some degree in the rise of the increasingly militant “dictatorship of relativism” in this country.My People are Dying“The people are dying for lack of knowledge,” cried out the prophet Hosea (4:6). “They don’t know me, and so they don’t want me” Jesus said to Mother Teresa in 1946. People are dying because they have not found a credible witness to Christ. Last year 38 people jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge, down from 46 the previous year. Jesus spent from morning to night healing these people, principally by witnessing to the love God has for them. He commands us to work with him.

“But father, I’ve tried to bring my children back to Mass!” many lament. True enough: it’s downright difficult to serve people who don’t want our services. The 50 Catholic parishes in San Francisco offer hundreds of “services” every Sunday, and most are mostly empty. So let us begin with silence and prayer, as Mother Teresa counsels on her “business card.” His bishop assigned St. John Vianney a dying parish in 1818 with these words: “there is little love of God in that parish.” Fr. Vianney sat in the confessional and no one came. He offered Mass and no one assisted. So he gave himself over to prayer, spending long hours in his silent church. Eventually people started coming, because they knew they needed what he had to offer. Prayer through Our LadyAs always, we turn to Our Lady. She knew she could not save even one soul, so she gave herself over to prayer. Her prayer was: “Let it be done to me as you say.” We who have faith will avoid the terrible discouragement of seeing our society lose its faith by repeating those words, and turning to Our Lady for consolation and strength.

]]>Thu, 05 Feb 2015 00:10:38 GMThttp://www.frilloblog.com/blog/a-statement-of-apologyI would like to apologize to the parents, children, and faculty at Star of the Sea School who have been hurt by my words posted on my blog and in the media.

In the first place, I’m sorry for not discussing my School concerns with our principal, Terry Hanley, before giving a Catholic World Report interview. What should have been kept a matter between parish and school became public. In the second place, I apologize for using the word “purge” in my blog following the interview (which has been corrected). A friend described a new pastor’s first year as a “necessary purge,” meaning not of people but of pride, expectations, and uncharity within pastor and people. I pray that God will continue to purify all of us with the fire of his Holy Spirit.

I am deeply grateful that God has sustained Star of the Sea School through some very difficult times, largely through the sacrifices and generosity of parents, faculty, and principal in these last few years. The School is thriving and a home for hundreds of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. I hope our non-Catholic families will know how much I appreciate their presence and generosity at Star of the Sea. There are needs that will always need to be addressed. With God’s help, I hope to forge trustful friendships with parents, students and staff.]]>Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:41:15 GMThttp://www.frilloblog.com/blog/from-the-pastors-laptop-the-san-francisco-missionMisión San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores)

A simple altar boy policy at my parish has unleashed a media firestorm. Hundreds of parishes in this country, and some entire dioceses, do not permit altar girls, so why the outrage? It is because I tried this in San Francisco, the city I love, the city that was founded in 1776 as a Catholic mission, the city whose churches flourished for a time, but the city that has once again become mission territory. Clergy often remark that the Church in America, and certainly in Europe, has reverted to mission territory. Africa and Asia, to whom we sent missionary priests for 300 years, are now supplying priests for American parishes. But not only priests. Here in San Francisco, my Sunday offertory cannot even meet minimal operating expenses; we must ask poorer parishes to fund us. In an effort to jumpstart the parish, we’ve increased our clergy from one priest to two, and we’ve invested in a first-class choral program. Our parish cannot afford these up-front costs, but many friends from former parishes in the Central Valley have sent money to help this “missionary church” in wealthy San Francisco. People do not fill the churches in our cities like they used to, but the faith is growing in this lovely city of St. Francis.Two months ago I implemented an altar boy policy that reflected the norms of the Catholic Church, particularly the 2001 directive of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship regarding female altar servers. This document says that “it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar.” If girls are invited to serve the Mass, “it would remain important to explain clearly to the faithful the nature of this innovation, lest confusion might be introduced, hampering the development of priestly vocations.” I explained to our school parents the reasons why we are declining the “innovation” of altar girls, pointing to the essential connection between the Church’s male priesthood and the acolytes who assist them in their high priestly office. This beautiful big parish church that we’ve been given to administer needs more members to sustain its irreplaceable mission of word and sacrament in the city. To revive a parish we look first to the sacred liturgy, and among other improvements we wish to strengthen the altar server, lector, and sacristan programs. We consider that developing an all-boys and father-son acolyte program will strengthen the community as it has in many parishes by bonding boys and focusing their efforts on the Mass as sacrifice offered by the priest. We are also training our lectors, and most of them are female, many of them girls from our school.Still, some members of our church, and of our school in particular, were not happy with the new boys-only acolyte program. Somehow CBS got wind of this unhappiness. The night before the massive Walk for Life in San Francisco, complete with grim anchorpersons and shocked reporters live-on-the-scene, KPIX portrayed our parish as demeaning women in their lead story on the nightly news. Television and newspapers around the country grabbed the story, and a storm of controversy ensued. Of the hundreds of emails and calls from across America, Ireland, England and Australia, almost every one from the San Francisco area was condemnatory, and almost every one from outside our area was supportive. But it is precisely in the storm of controversy surrounding the altar girl question that I see a first step towards greater faith in our parish and school. For years the school has operated somewhat independently of the parish. Laudably, it needs no funding from the parish; it manages its own staffing; its principal and faculty choose curricula; Masses are planned by teachers and students. It has been many years since parish priests or nuns have taught children at my school. Only 42% of its families are Catholic, many are not attending Mass regularly, and a number of faculty are not Catholic. I know and love my school principal and faculty, and I am coming to know and love the parents and students, but these are the unfortunate facts. It is precisely in this roiling controversy that parish and school have taken the first step in facing these anomalies. And this is certainly a step toward greater faith, because all of us want the school and parish to flourish, and we know we must make sacrifices to allow God to do this work.Vatican II (Lumen gentium 25) defines a Catholic as one who exercises “religious submission of will” to the Church’s teaching authority. At the parish level, this simply means trusting your priest. Catholics used to trust their priests, and there are various compelling reasons most do not trust them today. But to be Catholic means to regain that trust, both in the Church as mater et magistra and in the local bishop and priest. How can priests serve their flocks as spiritual fathers if their spiritual children do not trust them?Parish and school are at a turning point. Some will undoubtedly leave the school and some the parish and some will leave the faith (hopefully only for a season) because they cannot bring themselves to trust the Church. But those who face the inconsistencies that have obtained at Star of the Sea for many years will grow deeper in their faith. In a time when churches are empty, every pope, bishop, and priest must be a reformer. I see reform all around me, and reform is the only hope for the Church. This little controversy is a part of the difficult process of pursuing a course that is intended for the good of the entire parish, not only through the encouragement of vocations, but also a purified focus on the ultimate goals of the Church. A friend described this as a difficult but necessary process. May God give us the strength to embrace this constant reform of our faith and practice as Catholic Christians.

After the noon Mass on Friday, a CBS reporter cornered me, so to speak, for an impromptu interview saying “We have been told you are barring girls from the altar!” One must wonder why CBS is suddenly so interested in religion. Perhaps they simply wanted to invent a new angle on the storyline that “the Church Hates Women” the night before the massive Walk for Life in San Francisco. But I want to explain our decision to phase out altar girls to you who believe in the Church and her teachings. Altar girls have been permitted for the last 20 years, but for the previous 1900 years they were not permitted. Even now this decision is up to the local bishop. Fr. Driscoll and I asked and received Archbishop Cordileone’s blessing to train only boys going forward. In fact, girls are still serving at our parish, but we are transitioning into a boys-only program for two reasons. First, in a mixed altar-server program, boys usually end up losing interest because the motivation to excel and compete with male peers is removed in a mixed program. Rather, Fr. Driscoll and I want to develop the leadership potential in our boys, for which single-sex programs are clearly more effective. We want to nurture our altar boys to become strong men, sound in their faith and open to the priestly or married vocation God may be calling them to. Why is CBS not hassling the boys’ academies, the boy scouts, or the male fraternities of San Francisco? Why do we support female-only programs like all-girls schools, sororities and the girl scouts? We approve of other single-sex programs for a good reason. Second, and much more importantly, altar service is intrinsically tied to the priesthood and serves as jumping off point for the seminary. If the Catholic Church ordained women, altar girls would make sense, but the Catholic priesthood is a male charism. Nothing awakens a desire for the priesthood like service at the altar among the brotherhood of young men. At the risk of generalizing, I suspect young men might just be distracted from the sacrifice of the Mass by young women serving with them. I know change is hard, but I’m asking you all to trust me on this one. Buying into certain socially-bankrupt principles , like co-ed everything does not help us in the long run. We are Catholic, and we think differently than non-believers!

Domine non sum dignusToday Holy Mother Church gives us the Gospel passage that we repeat three times at every Mass: “Domine, non sum dignus, sed tantum dic verbo….” Lord, I am not worthy, but only say the word…” The pagan centurion believes that Christ can heal his son, and Jesus declares that nowhere in Israel, even among his own chosen people, has he found such faith. Let us pray that prayer, just before receiving Him in Holy Communion, with at least as much faith as the “pagans.”

If possible, live at peace with all menSpeaking of which, some of you may have seen our sleepy parish in the evening news on Friday. The breaking news story is that Star of the Sea is returning to the Catholic practice of only boys serving at the altar. As one parishioner observed, “girl altar boys never made much sense to me.” I was leaving Mass on Friday afternoon when a reporter from KPIX ran up with his cameraman. He had heard that our parish was no longer training “altar girls” and rushed right over to make an issue of it. He was very nice during the interview, but the news story that night was just a little short of vicious. CBS mostly showed angry parishioners, and both anchor woman and reporter bore grim expressions condemning the Catholic Church for being so hateful to women. I tried to explain that service at the altar is intrinsically tied to the priesthood, which is a male vocation, but CBS didn’t air most of what I said.

St. Paul urges us in the epistle: “do not repay anyone evil for evil…if possible, live at peace with all men.” It is not always possible to live at peace with all, not even with our own spouses and family members, and certainly not with non-believers such as CBS. But we must believe in God’s grace and try our best. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him.” Those of us who hold fast to a more traditional way of life, who adhere to the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church, are sorely tempted to repay the evil this evil generation dishes out to us with evil thoughts, complaints, and even bitterness. We must not give in to that temptation. I think of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who suffered unimaginable torments from “the pagans,” and yet who said to his fellow inmates at Auschwitz: “do no hate the guards…. Do not hate the guards.” St. Paul commands us: “do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil by good.”The Real StoryCBS invented and aired a story on how the Church hates women the night before the massive Walk for Life yesterday. Satan is behind all this, for he wants to destroy human life, and destroy it in its most precious sanctuary, the wombs of our mothers. Consider the real news story: In 1968 Martin Luther King had been assassinated, which led America to guarantee civil rights for all Americans. Just five years later, though, America’s Supreme Court reversed itself not only by denying civil rights to another class of citizens but by legalizing killing them. This new discrimination was not based on race but on age. As of January 22, 1973 in the United States, if you were under a certain age you had no civil rights even to the right to live.

January 22, 1973 was the end of the rule of law in this country, even though its consequences have only gradually become apparent. As we began to accept abortion in the late 1960s, family life began to disintegrate, the use of drugs escalated, violence came to our schools, and our streets became unsafe. The civil rights issues we thought had been resolved in the 1960s have erupted again this year in Ferguson, New York, and everywhere, because a nation that sanctions abortion will never be a nation that respects all its citizens. Yesterday, 60,000 walked down Market Street in an effort to overcome evil with good. We are tempted, certainly, to give up on America when the media, the government, and the education system are all under the sway of the evil one. But we cannot give up, and we cannot stay home. We need to pray, we need to speak, we need to walk. God bless all of you who do so. Let us continue to pray, especially through the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Mother. This nation is consecrated to the Immaculate Conception, and in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.